EthicalOil
 

How the foreign-paid Dogwood “Mob” is stealing our decision

January 11th, 2012  |  By: EthicalOil.org

For Canadians, the public hearings into the proposed Northern Gateway project, is an important opportunity for serious stakeholders to discuss the impacts and benefits for our country of a pipeline carrying oil from Alberta to Kitimat, B.C.

For the foreign-backed Dogwood Initiative they’re an opportunity to hijack the approval process — or as Dogwood actually calls it, a chance to “Mob the Mic.”

Seriously. That’s the name Dogwood gave its campaign to sign up as many of their activists as possible to deliberately bog down the hearings process. Of the astounding 4,000 people registered to testify before the panel, Dogwood says its campaign succeeded in signing up 1,600! Forty percent of the registered witnesses are apparently being sent to the hearings by one single anti-oil organization. They’re swarming these important hearings.  And Dogwood’s proud of it. The folks there are bragging about this.

But then, they had a mission to accomplish. This appears to be what they were paid to do by their foreign backers. The Seattle-based foundation started by software billionaire James Letwin paid Dogwood $25,000 to run a campaign against the “threat” of the Enbridge pipeline to the B.C. coast. Clearly the most efficient way to block this pipeline is to make sure it never gets approved — by swamping the approval process with an army of activists.

Dogwood took $30,000 from a foreign foundation in 2009 “to mobilize urban voters for a federal ban on coastal tankers.” Yet another foreign backer paid Dogwood to “to help grow public opposition to counter the Enbridge pipeline construction…”

But “growing public opposition” to the Northern Gateway isn’t easy in a province where popular support is on the side of the pipeline, according to the recent polling. But Dogwood found a creative way to fulfill the requirements of their foreign funders: Just find hundreds and hundreds of devoted activists to overwhelm the hearings, to march in en masse and drown out the voices of actual, average Canadians.

That’s what Dogwood’s “mob” is actually doing: overpowering the process, commandeering it, crowding out Canadians — and it looks like it was foreign money that made it happen.

They’re even hosting webinars to “make suggestions” about how to “prepare” for the oral hearings.  And what will they instruct during these webinars? What kind of “suggestions” will they make? Will they tell people what to say?

Dogwood appears to be using its boss’s muscle to steal Canadians’ opportunity to decide. No wonder they call it a “mob.”

 

  • AppleSauce

    “crowding out Canadians” – so are you saying that the 1,600 people signed up by dogwood aren’t Canadian? They are, they just have a different opinion. It is there right to attend the hearing and voice their concern, that’s what the panel is designed to do. The panels job isn’t to ram through the project, it’s to decide whether or not the project is in the best interest of the nation and those directly affected by it. It’s called democracy, and it isn’t just restricted to voting once every 4 years. Proponents of the project are also allowed to speak, maybe there just aren’t that many.

    Still waiting for ethicaloil.org’s funding disclosure.

    Anytime now would be great.

    • Jasonthedriller

      Everytime some environutter wingnut asks for Ethical Oil to make a funding disclosure, I contribute another $5 to them.

      Keep them coming!!

      • AppleSauce

        So you acknowledge the hypocrisy and keep going with it, logical…

      • Moderator

        Ethical Oil make a funding disclosure! $5 please Jason.

        • Moderator

          Ethical Oil make a funding disclosure! $5 please Jason.

          • Moderator

            Ethical Oil make a funding disclosure! $5 please Jason.

          • Moderator

            Ethical Oil make a funding disclosure! $5 please Jason.

          • Moderator

            Ethical Oil make a funding disclosure! $5 please Jason.

          • Moderator

            Ethical Oil make a funding disclosure! $5 please Jason.

          • Moderator

            Ethical Oil make a funding disclosure! $5 please Jason.

          • Moderator

            Ethical Oil make a funding disclosure! $5 please Jason.

      • Frankthedriller

        Hey Jason, I was watching Fubar II last night and I saw your strip club part. Nice work buds! See you on the patch. Let’s get some beers and hookers tonight, it’s Thursday still right?

        • Asdfas

          You econutter bastards have no respect for the working man. Only contempt.

      • Asdfas

        You econutter shit for brains assholes have nothing but contempt for real people trying to earn a living. You can rot in hell. I have no respect. None for sacks of shit like you.

    • Anonymous

      Your argument is completely specious, Applesauce. What the Dogwood Initiative has done is to stack and manipulate the Enbridge process with their members. If the 4000 people represented the general public, I would have no complaints, but the problem is that the Dogwood initiative and other green groups like to pretend that they represent the public interest. The fact is, they don’t represent the public interest, they represent their own radical ideological interests. While I might not agree with a lot of what Harper and Oliver say, I do agree with them on that fact.

  • Just moderate

    “Foreign” backing is a very slippery slope for the pro-pipeline people to stand on. And painting anyone who for whatever reason thinks sober second thought about this initiative as an anti-business, anti-oilsands radical is also not helpful. There are perfectly reasonable objections — not least of which being the fact that it’s bitumen that will be carried. Anyone who truly believes the oilsands should be exploited for all their job-producing potential would fight tooth and nail to have the stuff refined at home for starters, and then talk about getting the refined goods to market. Stop all the unproductive shouting and name-calling and just listen to each other, would ya? “Serious stakeholders” also include people who think benefits can be outweighed by drawbacks. And those people are as Canadian as you (I’m assuming) or me. Or don’t pro-oilsands people need clean air to breathe or clean water to drink?

    • Stem

      I agree, judicious use of the tarsands, is not out of the question, but if it is going to be about unfettered shipping of bitumen in quantities, and at a speeds that can endanger things that we don’t yet presently know, or understand are endangered, then it simply should be denied. I also have concerns about a strategic resource being sent to China. For all we know, it could easily be stored and refined for later use, such as for fighting future wars. Don’t think the Americans haven’t considered this and eventually they will have a say.

    • Stem

      I agree, judicious use of the tarsands, is not out of the question, but if it is going to be about unfettered shipping of bitumen in quantities, and at a speeds that can endanger things that we don’t yet presently know, or understand are endangered, then it simply should be denied. I also have concerns about a strategic resource being sent to China. For all we know, it could easily be stored and refined for later use, such as for fighting future wars. Don’t think the Americans haven’t considered this and eventually they will have a say.

  • Thirdpig

    I welcome international environmental voices in Canada — oil production and its use are global issues, regardless of where the oil originates. International investment and interest in oil production, as well as international sales and use of oil, are logically offset by international concern regarding climate impacts. If Canada wants to work in the global marketplace then we need to accept and indeed welcome global interest on other fronts, including deep concern regarding climate change resulting from Canadian oil. For better or for worse, we are all in this together: oil production and climate impacts are global interests and we need to welcome all these voices to the table to dialogue on how we are going to tackle challenges and opportunities going forward. Stop polarizing and over-simplifying these issues — instead figure out how we can benefit from diverse inputs to create informed dialogue, innovation and solutions.

  • Guest

    How foreign funded pipeline project is stealing our transparency…

    “…If Ethical Oil’s concern is about supporting oil companies linked to hideous and unethical practices like the oppression of women, terrorism and human rights abuses why are they supporting a pipeline being developed in partnership with some of the most unethical companies in the world?

    Sinopec is identified by human rights groups as one of the four worst companies operating in the Sudan. Sinopec’s partnerships with the government provides fiscal support for the Sudanese government’s genocidal military operations. The government depends upon oil revenues from Sinopec – which owns three key Sudanese oil companies – to support its military purchases and campaigns against the South.

    Sinopec plays a similar role in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), partnering with one of the most oppressive regimes in the world to develop both offshore and land based oil and gas reserves. Revenues from these operations help pay for the government’s extraordinarily repressive internal security operations.

    For this Sinopec in 2008 ‘earned’ the second worst rating for a company operating in emerging markets from RepRisk, a company that assesses reputational risk for commercial and investment bankers and asset managers.

    Doesn’t Sinopec’s involvement alone in the Northern Gateway Pipeline make the pipeline just another project of unethical oil? You’d think so. But there’s more.

    Just this past week new funding partners have declared their investment in the Pipeline project.

    MEG Energy is a Northern Gateway investor partly owned by CNOOC, another Chinese company with a poor human rights record in Burma. According to Wikipedia in 2008 the US Treasury Department asserted that CNOOC was cooperating in a Burmese joint venture with a company run by a Burmese family “linked to heroin trafficking”.

    According to the Globe and Mail Sinopec and MEG are joined by two more Chinese companies with appalling environmental and human rights records. According to the Globe, “Market sources have said they believe China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) also holds an interest in Gateway. Sinochem Group, another Chinese energy firm, is also believed to support Gateway.”

    According to RepRisk CNPC in particular “has been heavily criticized for its exploration agreements in Myanmar and alleged support for human rights abuses in Sudan, as well as the proposed Pengzhou petrochemical plant and oil refinery in Sichuan province in China, and relations with its controversial subsidiary PetroChina”. In 2008 RepRisk rated CNPC as the company with the 4th worst reputation in the world.

    Partnerships with Myanmar and Sudan… links to Burmese heroin traffickers… With this cast of characters partnering in the development of the Northern Gateway, you’d think Ethical Oil would be at the front of the line condemning the pipeline.

    That is if you think Ethical Oil’s real purpose is to oppose unethical oil.

    If, on the other hand, its real purpose is to front for Enbridge with scurrilous attacks on pipeline opponents…. Well then its actions to date make sense.”

    http://therealstory.ca/2012-01-07/bc-politics/unethical-oil-and-its-friends

  • Duaneburnett

    How pathetic defending a dirty fuel who’s time has come and gone.
    Oil is the new Tobacco. :D

  • Duaneburnett

    How pathetic defending a dirty fuel who’s time has come and gone.
    Oil is the new Tobacco. :D

  • Duaneburnett

    How pathetic defending a dirty fuel who’s time has come and gone.
    Oil is the new Tobacco. :D

  • Duaneburnett

    How pathetic defending a dirty fuel who’s time has come and gone.
    Oil is the new Tobacco. :D

  • Duaneburnett

    How pathetic defending a dirty fuel who’s time has come and gone.
    Oil is the new Tobacco. :D

    • Jasonthedriller

      So I hope you like living in a cave burning whale oil. Oh, that’s not you? Hypocrite.

      • AppleSauce

        I didn’t realize all the energy in the entire world will flow through the gateway and if we don’t approve it, we will never have energy again. I guess I should re-think this.

  • Stem

    A forbearing non-answer, is a cowards admission. Enbridge funds your group, admit it!. And let the truth set you free.

  • Stem

    A forbearing non-answer, is a cowards admission. Enbridge funds your group, admit it!. And let the truth set you free.

  • Stem

    A forbearing non-answer, is a cowards admission. Enbridge funds your group, admit it!. And let the truth set you free.

  • Stem

    A forbearing non-answer, is a cowards admission. Enbridge funds your group, admit it!. And let the truth set you free.

  • Stem

    A forbearing non-answer, is a cowards admission. Enbridge funds your group, admit it!. And let the truth set you free.

  • Mikegrace78

    the real questions should be… who is paying ethical oil’s bills?

  • Mikegrace78

    i’m a hard working canadian and I fully support dogwood. go spill you’re bitumen all over you’re cherished banff and leave bc out of it.

  • Brian McGavin

    Hey. Thanks for that Ms E-Olive Oyl!

  • Fellow Canadian

    The great thing about the Internet is that it makes it harder for operations like ethicaloil.org to hide its illegitimacy. More frequently, people are seeing things for what they really are. For what it’s worth, as an ordinary Canadian citizen working in the financial sector, I oppose the Gateway.

  • kroden

    I am as ‘average Canadian’ as it gets. I was born and raised on Vancouver Island, and spent my childhood exploring the great outdoors and natural beauty we are so blessed with. I later became an environmental educator and biology teacher in an effort to pass this love and appreciation on to the next generation. I am one of the 1600 that signed up with Dogwood to voice my opinions and I am extremely proud to have done so.

    • Zog

      By your “bio” you have established that you aren’t an “average” Canadian but a member of the elitist chattering class. As an “environmental educator”, you are a propagandist, paid by Canadian working people to brainwash their children. In brief, speaking as an individual who spent a lifetime during useful work for the benefit of his family, his community and himself, smug, arrogant. self-righteous jerks like you make me puke.

  • Andrew in BC

    I’m a Canadian who opposes the pipeline, not a “puppet” or “radical”. I’m not paid by anyone, I’m just concerned for our environment.

    • stopthepipeline

      So am I. Pipeline leaks are inevitable. Tanker spills are inevitable. Both are unacceptable

  • Canadian

    I am Canadian and I am with Dogwood. In fact, I don’t know a person who isn’t! Don’t twist the truth to protect your interest.

  • Zigerrr

    Yes I have a comment. I just saw katherine and CBC and she made a complete fool of herself and this organization. Answer the funding question or you’re going to be written off as just another mouthpiece for the big corporations
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toR3Tt9fS2E
    Here’s the video.

    • AppleSauce

      I think being writing off as a mouthpiece for big corp. has come and gone.

  • EthicalOil

    We’re sorry. We lied. There is no such thing as ethical TAR sands oil. Looks like the environmentalists were right.

    • Aggregate

      This is your response? Seriously? You know exactly what people are referring to when they call them tar sands, oil sands etc.. How could you possibly expect that people will take you seriously when you make a word game of this and use such childish tactics? It would probably be in your best interest to put an end to this sarcasm because it makes you and anyone else that supports your movement seem like the radicals.

      I’m not opposed to or for this pipeline, I am still weighing the facts and researching. However, when looking through all of the material from both sides it seems as though your views are over simplified, not taking into account all of the information that even you have access to

  • Moderator
  • Donations
  • Thetruth

    This is what tar sands look like…

  • Neil Borecky

    You know what would be ethical? Maybe securing our enegy security for the future instead of pumping unrefined bitumen to China as fast as we can. Your spectre of ‘foreign interests’ is laughable considering we’re pretty much stabbing our American cousins and partners in security in the back by turning around and selling it to a country with a laughable human rights record. Give your head a shake ‘Ethical Oil’ and maybe stop propping up this strawman story about it being an environmental issue. It’s an economic, security, and foreign policy issue. It makes me sick how some of us Canadians would sell our mother to the devil if we got a quick buck for it.

    • Swellman

      Especially given the fact that Canada is a net importer of ‘unethical’ oil. Instead of building this pipeline, we should be refining and using the oil ourselves – more jobs and money kept in Canada.

  • Guest

    an apt image… which brings to mind how is it that BC gave up its right to say no to cross boarder provincial developments??? who is the band of lunatics who signed that away on us? When did that slip through when we weren’t looking???

    “B.C. has forfeited its opportunity to say no to Gateway formally, having signed a pact years ago giving the federal government control over projects that cross provincial borders.”

    an appropriate image from the news below… Premier Christy (smile like crazy, never answer a question, and maybe they will think I’m not an air head) Clark, and our fearless leader the wonder boy from Alta… PM Harper (i’ll tell you what you need and make sure you get it like it or not…)

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-politics/kitimat-weighs-up-the-risks-of-oil-and-gas/article2300983/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2300983

  • Dustin Woodman
  • Swellman

    Thanks for the link to the Dogwood website! I just signed their petition :-)

  • http://twitter.com/DJBALL604 TheBallReport

    Here’s the real truth when it comes to foreign money.
    The real foreign interests in the oilsands
    http://www.ottawacitizen.com/story_print.html?id=5981230

  • LuckyCanuck

    The fact is that the PR marketing agency puppet so called “Ethical Oil is indeed funded by the Oil industry and so is Stephen Harper personally as well as the conservative party. That is clear. The most significant “puppet organization involved in this debate is the “Harper government” aka The government of Canada.

  • Jane Thomson

    Ethical oil is funded by the oil companies. And their mouthpiece, the lovely Katherine Marshall, is married to Hamish Marshall, Harper’s former strategic planning manager.

  • Jane Thomson

    You should also know that Kathryn Marshall is married to Hamish Marshall, Harper’s former strategic planning manager.

  • julian

    Dear ethical oil folks. Why do you hate Canada so much that you would twist the truth into such horrible lies and half truth? You make me very very sad :-(

  • JoeCanada

    Hahaha. She knows she has very little support as evidenced by these comments, so she shut off the comments on all her subsequent articles! How’s that for freedom of expression, Kathryn? Ezra?

    Freedom for the oil companies, but everyone else that raises their voice deserves to go to jail? Is that the Canada you want?

    If this pipeline ever gets built, I hope it goes right through your living room, Kathryn.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBuNpczosNU

  • JoeCanada

    Hahaha. She knows she has very little support as evidenced by these comments, so she shut off the comments on all her subsequent articles! How’s that for freedom of expression?

    Freedom for the oil companies, but everyone else that raises their voice deserves to go to jail? Is that the Canada you want?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBuNpczosNU

  • Andreas Krebs
EthicalOil